


Flowers For Her Grave

by nothinggold13



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Book: The Last Battle (Narnia), Gen, Post-Book: The Last Battle (Narnia), The Problem of Susan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-09
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2019-05-04 07:44:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 17,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14588310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothinggold13/pseuds/nothinggold13
Summary: Surely everyone knows the tale by now: Susan Pevensie used to be a queen, until one day she forgot. Oh, she swore she wouldn't, but she did. Susan knows who she is: the second eldest of the Pevensie children; a younger sister and an older one; "the beauty" of the family. She knows this. But what of the Gentle Queen? Is she lost forever? Or is what Aslan once said still true? "Once a King or Queen, ALWAYS a King or Queen."Standing at 10 chapters, this is the condensed version of what I believe her story should be. Someday, I may expand on this, and make it a full novel. For now, it is more general than that. This is a story of faith, and loss, and grief, and joy, and I sincerely hope you enjoy it. It is, quite possibly, the most important thing I'll ever write. <3





	1. Chapter 1

One of Susan's biggest struggles upon becoming a queen was figuring out the Narnian calendar. It did not match up to her preconceived 365 days, and the months had strange names, and on top of everything, the Narnians had largely lost track of the months following the Witch's winter reign. 

At the beginning of their reign, this was very important to Susan. It mattered to her to keep track of the days, and weeks, and months, and years. ("It's only logical," she often said.) So, with a little help from Edmund, and guidance from their Narnian advisers, they set the calendar year in motion again. 

As their first year in Narnia passed, Susan suggested they go back to Lantern Waste and visit the lamppost that first welcomed them into that strange and beautiful country. It would be an annual thing, she insisted, to commemorate their coming into Narnia, and to remember what they left behind. And so, at the beginning of spring, on what they decided would serve as their one year anniversary, (though Susan always felt bad that they could never be certain,) they mounted their horses and rode off through the woods, (followed, of course, by advisers and soldiers who didn't feel comfortable letting their child kings and queens ride off alone.)

Along the way, Lucy often made them stop so that she could pick some flowers. Snowdrops, primroses, and daffodils had just begun peeking up, and she couldn't resist. But Edmund, (who, while being a lot nicer to everyone on the whole, was still a child and sometimes couldn't help himself,) got irritated quickly, and began to complain whenever Lucy asked to stop. 

"What are they even for?" he would groan.

"It's just the sort of thing people would do back home. It's a sign of respect!" she replied brashly. The sentiment made her feel quite grown up.

"It's a wonderful idea, Lu," Peter assured her, giving Edmund a royal glare.

But Susan didn't like it. It reminded her too much of putting flowers on a grave.

When they arrived at the lamppost, Peter helped Lucy off her horse once again, and she placed the flowers she had collected delicately at its base. Then the four Pevensies stood in silence, unsure what to think, say, or feel. They wouldn't admit that they missed their parents, although it crossed their minds, because it didn't seem the type of thing they felt kings and queens should do. Susan especially wondered about her mother; about whether she missed them, and how she was coping. Peter thought of his father, off in the war, and wondered if he would be proud of him. Lucy, meanwhile, thought less of what her parents were thinking and doing, and more about how she wished they were there with her. They rarely crossed her mind in the hustle and bustle of life at Cair Paravel, but now, gazing at the lamppost that signified the end of Narnia, she couldn't think of anything else.

Edmund, of course, was too proud to express any kind of feeling on the subject, though in his heart he thought the same things as each of his siblings. Did their mother miss him terribly? Would their father be proud of the man he was already becoming? What would he give if they could be with them once again? His eyes shifted to the direction from which he first entered Narnia. Was the wardrobe door still open there behind the trees? Could he go home? But he wouldn't. "Well," he finally huffed. "What do you suggest we do, Susan? Stare at a lamppost all day? Let's get on back."

And so they did. The next year, Susan suggested they go again. Everything the children had felt the previous year flashed across their minds, and they frowned. "Let's not," Peter said. Edmund and Lucy also turned her down, though they each tried to be nice about it. When Susan began to look offended and as though she might argue, Peter said, "It didn't go so well last time, and honestly Su, what's the point? Surely we can celebrate just as well here as we could there. Besides, I'm the High King, and I said no." (This was an argument he used often when he was still a child, and sometimes referenced humourously once they got older. It made his siblings furious with him, but it also made them feel that they couldn't argue. It was different than when in England he would announce his position as the eldest child as if it gave him any power. That, they figured, was a matter of chance, while being the High King was an honour granted to him by Aslan. And none of them wanted to risk arguing with Aslan.)

And so the Pevensies stayed in that year. Seeing Susan was upset, Lucy picked her some flowers and spent the afternoon doing her hair. While she did, they laughed, and talked about all their fond memories. "I wish I could do my hair the way Mum used to do hers," Susan confessed. "Though I can't quite imagine how she did," she added in afterthought.

Lucy nodded. "It's a lot different here in Narnia," she mused. "But you always look so beautiful. I think some of the princes nearby are starting to notice."

This made Susan scoff, then blush, then laugh. "That's nonsense, Lu!" But the thought made her tingly inside.

By the third year, the Narnian calendar was second nature to her, but still she couldn't help feeling like something was missing.

"I just keep thinking that it's been so long since we celebrated our birthdays, or holidays from back home, or anniversaries," she confessed to Edmund one afternoon. "We know the years are passing, but I can't keep them straight in my head." As Susan said this, she grew sad, and even as she named the events, she found the dates wouldn't come to her. She didn't say this part out loud, for fear Edmund would laugh at her. After all, how could one not remember their own birthday? Which month was Easter? When had their parents been married? She wouldn't have even remembered Christmas if it hadn't been for Father Christmas leaving gifts once a year.

But by the sixth year, these anxieties were all but forgotten. Susan had begun to focus on other things entirely. What should she serve at the Christmas feast this year? Whom should she invite to the next ball at Cair Paravel? And of those, who would she dance with?

Susan at last found, as Lucy had told her several years before, that she was indeed quite beautiful, and that quite a few princes were vying for her affections. Their attention made her feel powerful, and being a blossoming young woman, she turned her own attention to them in return. She found that batting her eyelashes, flipping her long, black hair, or a gentle touch on the arm could get her nearly anything she asked for. Constantly adorned with new dresses, and priceless jewels, Susan thrived when she was being pursued, although she did not yet feel quite ready to take their advances seriously. At 18, being a good queen was far more important to her than being a wife, although being treated like a princess did make her feel special. She loved to be chased.

More years passed. While Susan's intentions became more serious, she still left some broken hearts in her wake. Not every king or prince was worthy of her, she found, remembering Prince Rabadash coldly. So she kept adventuring, exploring relationships with these men the way Lucy loved to explore the Narnian woods and hills and moors. When she was not courting, Susan's focus returned to ruling. She did not like to go off to the battles with her siblings. Though she could fight, and even had on occasion, the idea filled her with dread. "I'd be of more use here at Cair Paravel. Say you're all killed? Someone should remain behind. It's only logical." Every time she said this, her heart paled. She knew she could, if she needed to, but she prayed she'd never have to rule alone.

So, while her siblings explored, and fought, and hunted, and did the things that made them happy, Susan did what she could at the castle. Paperwork, laws, hosting events, etcetera, all fell on her. She didn't mind it. Peter, Edmund, and Lucy did their share, but Susan was happiest to be left to do the mental work instead of the physical. 

By this point, home was forgotten. It was more a dream than it was reality, and though logic told Susan that they must have had parents, it seemed to her that she and her siblings had simply sprung from the earth with the spring that defeated the White Witch.

Then one day, the news came that the White Stag had been spotted in their kingdom. 

"Oh, we must go try to catch it! We must, we must!" Lucy insisted at once.

"I can't imagine a reason why we wouldn't," Peter agreed.

"You all go on, then. I don't think I'd like it," Susan said. After all these years, she still hated participating in hunting parties. After the first few princes had invited her along, she began turning down any and all offers to do the same. It was not fun for her at all, and she hated the killing.

Lucy didn't care for hunting either, although she was proficient at it. She was excellent at spotting the difference between talking and non-talking beasts, but she hated the thought of killing any animal. Still, Lucy could not resist a good chase, and was glowing with anticipation as she comforted Susan. "It's not as if we'd have to kill it, I'm sure. We simply catch it, make our wish, and let it go. At least, I believe that's how it works."

"Come on, Susan. Where is your sense of adventure?" Edmund teased.

"I'm afraid it's no use arguing, Su. I'm the High King, and I say-"

"Oh, shut up, Peter. I'll come. Of course I'll come," Susan interrupted, getting to her feet. "But if we are only permitted one wish, it had better well go to me!"

"That wouldn't be fair," Edmund interjected.

"First one to the horses, then!" Lucy shouted and ran off, leaving her siblings a moment to register what she had said. And once they did, they immediately started racing, (forgetting that they ought to be too old for such games.)

Lucy had, of course, beaten the other three to the horses, though Edmund was the first to get his properly saddled and mounted. He stated that it only made sense that, in the case of a single wish, it go to him, for being the true winner of Lucy's challenge. Susan sighed again, reminding them that she didn't want to go in the first place, so it was only logical that she be rewarded in some way. Peter began to boast his position as High King again, but finally Edmund said, "All right, listen. It's all very well playing these games, but if the White Stag can only grant a single wish among the four of us, shouldn't we do all in our power to find one wish that will suit us all best? Or don't you think the best thing to do would be to use the wish for the benefit of all Narnia? We are acting like children."

Edmund had always done his best to see that his subjects were treated fairly. He was the one who liked to head up the courts and settle disputes, and this came through now, as he spoke to his siblings. For a moment they all looked very solemn, contemplating his words, but before any of them could agree, Lucy grinned.

"First one to catch it!" she exclaimed, and turned her horse sharply, setting off for the place the stag had last been seen.

So began the chase. Their last moments as King Peter the Magnificent, Queen Susan the Gentle, King Edmund the Just, and Queen Lucy the Valiant, though they didn't yet know it. The Pevensies weaved their horses through the trees, following any flicker of white they found in the distance, and as they rode they laughed. They continued to make wild claims, such as whoever could hold his or her breath the longest, or the one who could do the best riding trick should get the wish. And so they rode, four brilliant kings and queens, to a nearly untouched part of the forest near the end of their territory.

And in that spot stood a strange iron tree.

The four of them looked at it very hard, noticing how it sparked something inside of them. Hope. Regret. Longing. Nostalgia. Wonder. Loneliness. The feelings clouded their mind before the answers even came to them.

Susan wanted to turn back, but in the end it was she that said, "let us go on and take the adventure that shall fall to us."

A few moments later, they found themselves surrounded by soft furs instead of trees, and the earth became hard and flat beneath them, and finally they fell to the floor of a dingy old room which was unoccupied except by a single wardrobe.

Even then Susan's memories of England did not return immediately. She looked down, shocked to see a child dressed in strange clothes, rather than the queen in Narnian dress. Her hands went to her hair, which no longer fell like a waterfall down her back. Who was this child she found herself inside of? Where was it that she found herself now?

And then, gradually, she began to remember...


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2 of "Flowers For Her Grave" ends the little prologue of, "How could she forget?"

Susan could never make up her mind on the hardest part of returning to England. For one thing, it was a bit of a culture shock, returning to the age of cars and phones and electricity. The abnormality of these things and her lack of understanding made her feel even more like a child. And that, in itself, was a whole other matter. What bothered her most about her age was that grown-ups didn't take her seriously anymore. Even as a child in Narnia, she was respected as a Queen, but in England she was always expected to be seen and not heard. When she offered her opinions on politics, the adults would shut her down. "Pretty girl," they'd chide her, "you can't be expected to know anything about this. Go play with your sister and brothers. This is not talk for children's ears."

And then there was that. Pretty. The word made her feel tiny. Being pretty was the most useless thing she could be, and it meant nothing. Pretty. They meant to be kind, she knew, but "pretty" was an insult after princes had literally gone to war for love, (or, as she knew, lust) for her. Susan didn't want to be the pretty one. She wanted to be beautiful. She wanted to be wanted. She wanted boys to buy her gifts and offer her kingdoms for the radiance of her smile. She wanted to be unstoppable.

But lastly, upon returning home, she finally remembered all those things she had forgotten: birthdays, months, anniversaries, names, places, and, most importantly, her parents. Her own family had faded from her mind when she was Queen Susan, and she hated herself for it. How had she let herself forget? She should have pressed harder to make her siblings go to the lamppost that second year, and all the years after. She should have talked to them more often about life back in England. She should have fought for those memories.

Which is why, during that first year in England, she spent every moment she could with Peter, Edmund, and Lucy, talking about Narnia. She tried not to focus too much on what must have been happening there in the present, for she couldn't bear to think of the Narnians who missed her, or how they may be struggling without their royal family. Instead, she held firm to the memories.

"Do you remember that afternoon with the Beavers?" She'd begin, and the others would join her, laughing at their adventures, both homely and otherwise.

Peter would say, "How about our journey to visit the giants?" and Lucy would tell the others all over again how funny they were.

Then Edmund would goad Susan, saying, "Do you remember when Rabadash attacked Archenland? I must say, Su, I never did understand what you saw in him as a human, but he did make a rather fine looking donkey!"

Finally, Lucy would sigh, "Oh, Susan, do you remember when Mr. Tumnus took us to dance with the fauns? Oh, and the trees! It was such a beautiful night."

Susan wouldn't forget. How could she?

So when, nearly a year later, they found themselves being whisked away by magic once again, the memories were still very fresh in her mind. Perhaps this made it worse to find Narnia in disarray. Though she never said it out loud, Susan had often hoped, in her heart of hearts, that they would return, and it broke her heart when she discovered she'd never see Cair Paravel, or the Beavers, or her other friends again.

For this reason, even once Narnia was largely renewed with Caspian as its king, it no longer felt like home. Susan Pevensie did not belong in Narnia anymore.

Which, as fate would have it, was exactly what Aslan said to her. "You've grown up, my child," he told her, his voice like sunlight. "You've learned all you can from this world. It is time you returned to your own."

Though she felt this in her heart, Susan still argued. "But Aslan, what if they need me again? I'm a queen here. They need me. Narnia needs me." She didn't tell him that she needed Narnia, because she hated to think that it might be true.

As always, Aslan's eyes spoke before his mouth did. "Peace, my child. I will be with you, and I know all things that will come of this." At these words, his eyes turned sad, and Susan felt afraid. "Narnia does not need Queen Susan of the Horn any longer, but I think you shall find England is in need of your strength."

"Aslan, sir, I'm sorry, but you must be mistaken. They don't need me there. They don't even hear me when I try to help."

"Then perhaps, dear heart, you will need to teach them to listen."

When his lingering presence faded from her mind, Susan was angry. Angry at Aslan for sending her home. Angry at herself for letting them go hunting after the White Stag, which made them leave Narnia the first time. Angry at Lucy for bringing them there in the first place. She was angry that for the second time, she had been thrown from Narnia back to England, where she was expected to continue living as a silent, pretty child.

So she stopped trying so hard to remember. One year passed, and she didn't bring up Narnia on her own any more. She only talked about it when her siblings insisted, but Susan found these memories were tinged red. They weren't happy anymore.

Then came the time she went to America, and Lucy was so excited to write to her that they had been to Narnia again - with their cousin Eustace Scrubb, of all people - and seen Caspian and Reepicheep and Aslan and the entire ocean. ("Which was Reepicheep?" She had to ask herself. "Oh yes, the mouse.") Susan feigned excitement in her reply, though in reality she seethed. Why had Lucy and Edmund gotten to go back? Did Aslan like them better? (She didn't find out until later that they were not to return, either. Lucy hadn't wanted to put it in the letter.)

After this, Susan wouldn't talk about Narnia at all. When her siblings talked about it, she would leave the room in a huff, offended by the world that didn't seem to want her. And the less she talked about it, the less she remembered it. A lamppost no longer held any special meaning for her. She couldn't recall what kind of creature Tumnus was. What did her room look like in Cair Paravel? Why did she feel surprised every time she realized the year was only 365 days? Who was Caspian? Despite all this, even now she remembered the name of Aslan. But the name brought an angry chill to her heart instead of the delight it once had.

But on the other hand, people were starting to respect her. She was the only one of her siblings who was taken to America with her parents, (surely because she was the only one cultured enough to appreciate it, she thought.) Instead of "pretty," grown-ups had begun referring to her as a "beautiful young lady," and that made her feel just a little more powerful. And lastly, boys at school had begun to try to woo her, and though she was not the least bit interested in their childish charms, she had fun being pursued again.

A few years later, and Narnia was only a dream in her mind, if she let it reside there at all.

Lucy had begun to read the Bible thoroughly. Although they had always attended church on the important days, and they knew the basics of religion, they had not been, in the past, a very spiritual family. But Lucy's eyes had been opened back in Narnia, and each time she opened her Bible she found something that mirrored her time there. "Oh, Susan!" she'd cry excitedly. "You won't believe what I've just noticed! Read this, Su! Oh, just read it! Do you remember? It's just like that time in Narnia-"

At this Susan would make a face and sigh. "Narnia? I don't... Oh, right. That world in the wardrobe. Fancy that." Once she made it this far, she would remember that it just wasn't logical, and if it wasn't logical, obviously it wasn't true. "Aren't you getting a little too old for these games, Lu? It was fun back then, I'm sure, but we're older now. We can't keep living in fairy tales."

Lucy could never find the words to argue her. Susan had, of course, always been the logical one, and the funny thing about that is that the more logical you try to be, the more truth you miss. So Susan would berate her, and Lucy would scowl and walk away, for once unable to fight.

Lucy'd always hated being unable to fight. Susan began to forget that she'd ever been able to.

Susan was practically an adult now, and adults didn't have time for magical worlds or talking animals. No, she was busy with school for a while, and when she found that she just couldn't succeed in that, she turned her attention to other matters. After all, Susan was beautiful. Her dark hair curled elegantly over her shoulders, and she had learned to accentuate her face using different make-ups. She was especially fond of red lipstick.

And unlike when she was younger, Susan actually liked the company of men who tried to woo her. They made her feel special.

They invited her to parties, and she was always more than happy to attend. Susan would dance, and smile, and chat. She'd flirt and laugh and wobble in her heels. She was a social butterfly, and this became her whole life.

This time she could keep proper track of the passing years. She knew what day her birthday was, and she knew her parents. She didn't forget holidays and anniversaries, and she knew the street names back at home. Every day of the month was clearly written out for her, and every month of the year, and every year of her life. She knew Susan Pevensie: the beauty of the family, the second eldest, big sister, and popular. She was grown-up now.

But she no longer knew Susan of Narnia: the gentle, the beauty, the queen.

How could she forget?


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 3 begins the main story. What is life like for Susan now that she no longer has Narnia? What is her relationship like with her brothers and sister? And just what will it take for her to find faith again?

Susan Pevensie was like most girls, but she hadn't always been. Her childhood friends could still remember how she acted around the ages of 12 and 13; she sat up too straight and used too many words. She'd been too bossy, and too serious, and too wise. It had been off-putting, but now she was different. She was older, and quieter, and more fun. She went to parties and met young men and joined them on dates. She seemed, by all appearances, happy.

And certainly, she thought she was.

There was a name on the tip of her tongue that she couldn't move past her lips, and it wasn't the name of God, but it carried the same weight. There was a twitch in her hands as she braided her hair, as if she meant to do it another way, and even now sometimes she was surprised by how young her face was at 20 years old. It was all nonsense, of course, like the way her head felt too light as if something ought to be weighing it down, and the weakness in her arms that sometimes surprised her. See? Nonsense.

Peter and Edmund and Lucy seemed to think they had it all figured out, of course, but she didn't believe them. How could she? They were obsessed with games and fairy tales, and as much as Susan loved the three of them, she couldn't abide it. She blamed everything she could on their apparent madness, and she worried about them to no end. (They worried about her, too, but she didn't pay them any mind. They were the silly ones. She was just being logical.)

Peter called her sometimes, cautious and patient like he always was, and asked her to join them for supper. "We're going to see Polly and the Professor, and Eustace and Jill are coming along, too."

Her heart would lift at the invitation, and deflate just as fast. She knew what it meant when this particular group was called together, and she knew it wasn't just another dinner party. So she'd groan, and berate him, "Is this about your magical land again? Peter, I've told you-"

"Please, Susan. I know you don't... that is, I know you don't care about Narnia like we do. Even so, it's such good fun for all of us. And we miss having you around. We miss you, Su." There was something funny about the way he said it, as if he was holding back more than he was saying. Where he said care, Lucy would've said remember. He'd nearly said it himself. As they both paused, Susan could hear the anticipation through the phone.

Oh, shut up, Peter. I'll come. Of course I'll come.

The words slipped through her fingers and fell to the floor. Where had she said that before? I'll come. Of course I'll come. But even as the words echoed through her mind, she found herself turning him down, like she always did. "No, Peter. You know how I feel. I won't keep entertaining childish fantasies just to please the lot of you."

Again there was a pause. Echoing promises. The hint of what Peter hoped to say. But whatever it was, he didn't say it. "All right. I'll tell the others not to expect you."

It unsettled Susan, the way he didn't fight back. The way he said "all right," even as his breath hitched, and let himself hang up. He was her big brother; her anchor. He was supposed to hold her steady. He was her shield. She still remembered when the war ended, and the way she and Peter had spoken.

"I'm glad it's over," Susan had said, though the pit of it still remained in her stomach.

"I am, too."

"I say, Peter, just in time, too. Any longer and you would have been sent off to war as well. You could've ended up anywhere! Then what would you have done?"

Peter's voice was hard. Stern. Too grown-up, even at 18. "I would have gone. I would have fought." 

"But Peter! This was a war! Don't be silly. What if something had happened to you?"

"What if something happened to you?" He looked at her again, as if to ask what else he could be expected to do. 

This hit Susan funny. The fierce protectiveness in his voice was both too familiar and wildly out of place. Slowly, she answered. "I understand that, Peter. I'm so thankful for the soldiers that fought. Really, I am! But all the same, I'm glad you didn't go."

"I'll still have to serve." He sounded tired. 

"But not in the war, and I'm glad of that."

"I am, too," Peter agreed, before drawing a breath. "But understand, Su, that I would go to war for you. For all of you. Mum, and Ed, and Lucy, and Dad, too. Even Eustace. If I can fight for you, know that I will, every time."

Susan hadn't liked that much at the time. The war was too fresh in her mind, and so was her brother. She tried to argue with him, still. There were jobs that would exempt him from service, or ways he could object, but he never agreed to any of them. He was too stubborn. Too dutiful. Too fierce. Already Susan had forgotten the battles he'd won before, and, oh, she felt so grown-up at 17, but Peter was just a boy. Boys had no business in battle.

But now that she was older, and now that the war was long over, it was like a promise, and while she hoped it would remain empty, it made her feel safe. Peter would fight for her. Every time.

Just not this time. He hung up the phone, and she held it to her ear for another minute, expecting to hear his voice again.

It made her sad for a moment, and bitter the next. How could he leave it like that? Did he really think she was so far gone that he wouldn't bother to argue with her a little longer? No, Susan didn't want to go. She didn't want to talk about Narnia and play make-believe. She wanted nothing to do with it. But, oh, she wanted Peter to try a little harder to make her go.

She began to hope for a call from Edmund or Lucy, but they didn't call either.

And so Susan convinced herself that they didn't need her - or worse, didn't want her - and decided to move on. She had a date that night, anyways; a handsome young gentleman who she'd met through a friend and talked with once at a party. She was looking forward to it. She'd been planning her outfit all day.

That was okay. She'd be okay, with or without her siblings. Susan didn't need them.

Oh, but she missed them.

Lucy had liked to dress up with her from time to time. Susan would curl her golden hair and pin it back into victory rolls, (which Lucy had always liked the name of.) It was a long process, as Lucy, even now at 17, could hardly be bothered to sit still, but in the end Susan always insisted she looked like a movie star; which was a claim Lucy would vehemently deny. She never saw anything of that sort in herself, (an insecurity for which Susan couldn't help but pity her,) and she could hardly be bothered if she did. Susan would give her names; compare her to Shirley Temple, or Judy Garland, but she wouldn't hear it. Some called it modesty. Susan called it infuriating. How could her little sister not see herself as beautiful? Even at her most natural, when she felt the most plain, her golden hair, rosy cheeks, and friendly smile made her stand out. She was the golden girl. 

Lucy's favourite part of dressing up was trying on Susan's fancy dresses. She always stood a little straighter when she wore them, and when she did, she began to look almost out of place. Lucy was noble. Ethereal. Angelic, even (or perhaps, especially,) when she twirled excitedly to see which skirts would spin the way she liked them to. Susan tried to make her see herself the way she did, but it was something Lucy never learned. 

Instead, she turned the compliments around on Susan as she took her turn as the stylist. Lucy would begin by braiding her hair back in designs which seemed almost too complex for her to know. "What are you doing?" Susan would ask, and Lucy would reply with, "I don't know." Her fingers moved of their own accord as her mind struggled to remember the pattern, and Susan watched her reflection in the mirror with fascination. It was almost familiar, this image. Lucy's fingers were quick, and her face was twisted in concentration.

Then: "It's too short."

Lucy would tie off the braids, seemingly disappointed, though Susan couldn't understand why. "I've been growing it out, Lucy! It's longer than it's ever been!" Lucy's face fell as she nodded, and Susan ignored her and examined the braids. They were beautiful, even if unfinished, as Lucy insisted. Susan liked them fine. They looked nice, but she couldn't understand them. She knew she wouldn't wear them out in public; they were too strange for that. Still, they were lovely, and she thanked her sister politely.

Then Susan was left to apply her own makeup. Lucy'd never been one for makeup, though she'd let Susan paint her lips pink and add some colour to her eyes. The youngest Pevensie was happier to leave her face as is, or perhaps she just had neither the skill or the patience to learn it. She didn't much like the feel of it on her face, either. Instead she watched Susan; admiring the perfect sweep of black above her eyes, and the way she stained her lips such a vibrant red. Susan's lips had almost a natural pout, and the bright colour made them even bolder. She was beautiful. She always had been. And what's more, she knew it.

They had very different looks when they were done, but then, they always had. Susan's appearance was dark and dramatic; she looked like a pin-up model; an enigma. Lucy, on the other hand, was light and warm. She was absolutely lovely, but more like a flower and less like a painting.

They admired each other more than they cared to admit. Oh, they complimented each other incessantly, as sisters do, but they never revealed the depth of their feelings. Susan loved Lucy. She admired her strength and courage and kindness. But she couldn't fathom saying such things.

Anyway, it seemed to her that she saw less of Lucy now. They didn't dress up together anymore.

The more religious Lucy got, the more she tried to make Susan play Narnia with them, and the more Susan dismissed her, the more Lucy drew away. It was a paradox between them; a game of push-and-pull. And really, it was stupid. It had made Susan sad at first, but now it just made her angry. What sort of world was this Narnia if all it did was make her sister hate her? What sort of god? It was a selfish game, she thought. A heartless world. (Still, even now Susan met her family at church on Christmas. That's just what people did.)

Looking back, Susan had always gotten along best with Lucy and Peter. That's just the way it had been, growing up. With Peter, the two of them were the oldest, closest in age, and they had responsibilities that the others didn't. They needed to work together, they needed to support each other, and they needed to take care of the younger two. It was what they had always done, and it connected them. Then, of course, Lucy was the other Pevensie girl, and there are some things only sisters can know. They'd had their rough patches, but they'd been inseparable once, too. She couldn't put her finger exactly on when things had changed between them. They'd been going up and down, back and forth, for years now. 

And as her relationship with the two of them grew strained, she found she got along better and better with Edmund. He seemed to understand her better, even if he didn't support her in everything she did. She didn't always agree with him either. That was fine. Susan began to see herself in him. He, too, seemed older than he was, the way she'd always tried to. He was wiser, and even, in his own way, kinder. It seemed funny, she thought. Looking back, Edmund had been such a nuisance. He had been nine, almost ten when he started hanging out with the rude boys at school, and he'd turned into one himself. He bullied Lucy, and disrespected Susan and Peter. He'd been awful, then. But he'd changed somehow since their time at Professor Kirke's.

See, Lucy'd always been the sweet one, and Peter the most level-headed. And really, it wasn't that they were rude now, but Edmund was different. He seemed more patient with Susan; more understanding. He didn't push her the way the others did. He seemed to see her more clearly. Almost like a mirror.

Still, at the end of the day they remained caught in their games, Edmund included. Peter, 22, and far too old for such nonsense... but then, he'd always been a dreamer, even if he kept it hidden. And Lucy, who should've grown up a bit by 17, but had always been childish, and didn't seem keen on changing now. Then finally Edmund, turning 19 soon enough, who hadn't been either, but in his heart he'd always been true. True, it seemed, even to silly games.

Susan thought they must have found it fun. It was the only explanation. Edmund played games for the same reason he read detective stories, and Lucy played them now just as she played them with the children at their church. And Peter, well, it must have kept him young! Surely that was it, and the same must be true for the Professor and Aunt Polly, (though Susan had mostly dropped the "aunt" from her name.) She could make up these excuses all day. Eustace, perhaps, was making up for all the time he'd spent being insufferable as a child. And Jill? Well, maybe she was like all of them.

Sometimes Susan's heart yearned to join them. Not because she cared, and not because it was real, but just because she missed them, too. She wanted to play their games for the same reason that Peter danced with Lucy at wedding receptions: not because he liked it, but because she did. It would make them happy, she knew, if she joined them. Dreadfully happy, if she gave in just once... so why wouldn't she?

Well, because it was ridiculous. It was childish and unrefined and silly.

Because the thought of it made her irrationally mad.

And so she didn't. So she never would.


	4. Chapter 4

Lucy spent Edmund's entire 19th birthday party planning her 18th.

Edmund hadn't really wanted a party, but their parents were feeling nostalgic and insisted on celebrating. They, too, realized their last baby would be an adult soon enough, and suddenly they were determined to treat their children like children once more. 

Susan spent the day with Lucy and her mother, helping them bake a cake, and prepare a meal. It was a little like old times. Her clothes were covered in flour and cocoa, despite her making sure to wear an apron, and her face was spotted with batter. She didn't mind this, too much. She'd brought along a change of clothes and her makeup so that she could cleanup afterwards. This part was always messy. Susan, incapable of remaining perfectly mature while spending the day with her sister and mother, had smeared a dollop of the chocolate batter on Lucy's freckled nose, and Lucy had retaliated joyfully. 

Shortly before the party, their mother dismissed them so that they could all get washed up, and Susan and Lucy laughed their way to the bathroom. They washed all the batter off their faces and hands, and then got to work fixing their hair and changing their clothes. 

The party itself wasn't that big. Professor Kirke hadn't been able to make it, but he insisted he'd have all of them over for dinner one more time before school started for Eustace and Jill in a week. Polly came, (or "Aunt Polly," as the younger kids still referred to her.) She was like family, after all. Then, of course, came Eustace and his parents. 

To top it off, Edmund had been encouraged to invite some friends of his own, and he'd obliged in an effort to make the party a little more enjoyable. 

It was fun enough, Susan thought. As soon as the guests had arrived, Lucy had mostly shirked her kitchen duties, and Susan picked up the slack like she always had. 

The Pevensies' father put on a few of Edmund's old favourite records, and Eustace sat with him, while his own parents stood to the side and mostly kept to themselves. Susan attempted small talk with the two of them, but they clearly weren't interested in conversation, and Susan wondered a little bit why they'd even come.

Edmund leaned against the wall in the corner with his friends, discussing things Susan only caught pieces of: war, and politics, and books, and music, and then sudden uproarious laughter about something trivial that she didn't understand. To her surprise, both Peter and Lucy stood with them at first. Once upon a time Edmund would have complained about his little sister tagging along, and just as much about his older brother hovering over him, but somewhere down the line, that had changed. 

Lucy, as always, was enchanting everyone with her angelic smile, and somehow she kept up with the boys' conversation easily. (Susan could flirt and chat, but she'd long since given up trying to understand the things that young men talked about. How should she know anything about war, and why should they want her to? Yet here was Lucy, only 17, completely in her element.) Every so often, she'd throw a phrase Eustace's way, and he would grin, but he didn't try to join the conversation. 

Then, all of a sudden, Lucy's demeanor changed; she started pulling at Peter's arm, and the two of them began dancing to the record Mr. Pevensie had just put on. Susan smiled as she watched them. 

When Peter tired, Aunt Polly stepped in, and she and Lucy twirled and stepped all over the room. No one else made any effort to dance, and indeed, the dancers looked quite silly, but nothing deterred Lucy, and Aunt Polly was well past caring what anyone thought. 

The Scrubbs were the first to leave, followed by Aunt Polly, and then finally, Edmund's friends wished him a happy birthday and went home, as well. All that remained were the Pevensies.

Susan had been watching all these events between running back and forth between the kitchen and the living room. She'd insisted on letting her mother relax during most of the party, and had taken on the role of host wholeheartedly. She brought out the appetizers, chatted with guests, and put the candles on Edmund's cake, and she loved it all. She'd always liked hosting parties. But, now that it was nearly over, she wanted nothing more than to enjoy this one, too.

Mr. and Mrs. Pevensie danced now, and Susan grabbed Peter. He put his hand on her waist, and she put her hand in his, and she tried to keep her footing as he continually missed steps. Awkward as he was, Susan felt comfortable like that. She'd always loved dancing, and had danced with plenty of young men at the parties she attended, but there was something especially nice about dancing with someone she'd been close to since childhood. No, Peter wasn't much of a dancer, but he was her brother. Still her brother. Still her shield. 

Behind them, Edmund and Lucy argued about what record to play next. Edmund insisted that the record he wanted was the better one, but Lucy was determined to listen to another one because it had one song that she really liked. Finally, Edmund conceded, and said that they could listen to Lucy's song first. She stuck out her tongue in victory, but her smile was genuine. They were the same, too. Edmund, still the mediator, and Lucy, still stubborn and sweet.

And, above all, there were their parents; already so much older than they had been ten years ago, but still so loving and happy together. They'd made it through the war, and they'd made it through raising four children, and they'd made it through another evening with Harold and Alberta. They were victorious, and greying, and still just the Pevensies.

Susan wondered in that moment what her siblings were thinking of her. Did they see that she was the same too? Did they realize that she was still Susan?

They were happy in that moment.

Like they used to be.

Like they should have been.

Happy.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: major character death.

They were meant to have dinner the evening before Eustace and Jill were to go back to school, but Susan cancelled. Or rather, she refused. She would've liked to have gone, just to visit with the people she loved, and she very nearly had. But even without them saying, she knew the evening wasn't really about that. It was about the so-called "friends of Narnia," and Susan would not be a part of it.

Instead she stayed home. She drew herself a bath, and finished up a book she'd been putting off reading, and made herself a nice dinner, and washed up the dishes afterwards. It was a perfectly ordinary day.

It was still summer, so the sun would not be going down until late, making the day long and warm. Days like this, Susan hated living in the city. She yearned for cleaner air, bluer skies, and greener grass... like the Professor's old house, she told herself. Like his big house in the country, and no wilder than that. Where the stars were brighter - not different like she kept thinking they were. Oh, she missed that house. She missed her brothers and sister. She missed the way they used to play together... But it was a warm summer evening, and it was a lovely time to be alone, too.

Susan settled herself down to write a letter to one of her friends who was travelling, and let the sun lower itself in the sky. It wasn't too late when she heard the car pull up; the world was still bright, save for the shadows of the buildings, and soon there were footsteps on the stairs, and then loud knocking on her door. As she considered answering it, Susan heard the lock being turned, and enthusiastic steps rushing in.

A voice called her name, and she looked up from where she sat at the small writing desk in her bedroom. Lucy's shining face appeared in the doorway.

"Susan, you won't believe what's happened!"

"Calm down, Lu," Susan laughed. "Come and sit. I'll make some tea."

"No! There's no time! Oh, Susan it was utterly fantastic!" Lucy paced the floor in excitement, and began recounting her experience with wild gestures. "We were all at dinner when this man appeared. He looked like a ghost, and we were all thinking the same thing, when Peter addressed him-"

It only took a moment for Susan to realize her tale was about Narnia, and as she did, she stopped hearing a word Lucy said. "Lucy, stop."

"What do you mean? How could I stop? Susan, it was wonderful! I told Edmund we had to come tell you right away, because now that we've seen it again... well, there's no way you can't believe it now! Call Aunt Polly, or Professor Kirke. They'll tell you exactly what I did!"

Susan bit the inside of her cheeks, trying to ward off the anger she felt simmering in her veins. Her jaw tight, she weighed the words, and finally said, "I don't believe, Lucy."

Lucy stopped her pacing, and turned to her sister with wide eyes. "You can't possibly mean that."

Susan's words were short and measured. "I have told you a hundred times. I have told Edmund. I have told Peter. There is no Narnia. I won't believe in Narnia. I won't play your games or entertain your stories." Her voice raised slightly, and she tried to bring it back down as she said, "We are not children any longer, and we never were those kings and queens."

Lucy's face grew red. "How can you say that?"

All at once, Susan's grace vanished. "We can't do this every time! You ask me to come for dinner, but all you really want is to play and imagine. You shove your bible in my face and tell me it is just like some other person or thing that happened. You beg me to remember, but there is nothing there! Lucy, we can't have found a land in a wardrobe, and you can't fall through a picture frame into the ocean. Ghosts don't appear at dinner, and animals don't go around establishing monarchies, and trees don't dance, and lions-" There was a pain in her stomach as she said the last word, and so she paused and took a deep, calming breath. "It's a lovely story, Lu, but that's all it is, and all it can ever be. I won't be a part of it, and it's about time you grew up, too."

Now Lucy cried - hot, angry tears - and she looked and sounded more like a child than she usually did, (which Susan thought was very unbecoming.) "Oh, Susan! You can't say that! You can't!"

"Lucy-" Susan began, exasperated.

"Don't! Don't say my name like that! You're not mum, and you're acting like a pig!" Lucy's temper had always been hot, but Susan didn't think she had ever seen her this angry. At the very least, Lucy'd never called her a pig before. "You think you're so grown-up, but you haven't got a clue. You tell me to act my age, but what you really mean is act like you. But I've been 17 before, and I've been 21 before, too, and none of it means anything! Do you hear? It means nothing! You're upset that we won't act like you, when you're the one who never listens!"

At last Susan's own temper flared up. This had been a thorn in her side for years, but for all the time she spent turning her siblings down, she had never been more than short with them. This conversation, however, was different. They could both feel it. This was where it broke: Susan was angry, bothered, and prideful, and Lucy was heartbroken and mad about it. They knew it almost at once: They couldn't fix this one.

"Lucy, I've had enough! I never want to hear you talk about Narnia again. It's all you ever do, and I am bloody sick of it. Stop screaming at me, for heaven's sake, and either grow up or get out. I will not have this conversation again."

And then Lucy stood, chest heaving, face red, and brows furrowed. Like a wall of ice, something had shattered between them, and each was taken aback. They looked ugly to one another - as if all the goodness had drained out of them - and neither liked the way it made them feel. Still, neither of them said a word as Lucy turned heel and rushed out the door.

Susan exhaled, and turned her gaze back to her desk. She was meant to be writing something nice, but her heart still burned. She didn't regret her words yet, and she didn't regret letting Lucy go. She was done. She was tired. And for the moment, she thought she was over all of it. But she jumped when the door slammed, and turned to notice, for the first time, a new figure in the doorway.

Edmund stood with his shoulder against the door frame, and his arms crossed. "She loves you, you know."

Susan ducked her head and tried to focus on her letter once more. "I know," she answered shortly.

"She misses you."

"I miss her," Susan confessed. "If only she would stop play-"

"Don't."

The word made Susan look up in surprise, and she was almost offended by it until she studied Edmund's face. He looked calm, but somehow she could see that he was angrier than he appeared. The difference between the two of them was that his anger was shadowed by something else. Curiosity? Sorrow? Disappointment? Whatever it was, the look gave Susan chills.

Edmund sighed. "I wish I could tell you that it wasn't about you. That would make you listen, wouldn't it? If I could say, 'Of course it's all nonsense, that's just the point,' like Peter once did, and convince you we were all doing this for Lucy, as if she were still a child."

Susan didn't answer him, but in her heart she felt he was right. She so wanted to believe that the rest of them only played along for her sake, rather than that they, too, were mad. She longed to hear that the game was not so important as they made it seem. Because if that was true, maybe they would come back to her. Maybe they could be a family again.

"I wish I could tell you that. Then maybe you'd set aside your needless pride and play along, not for yourself, but for your family. For your sister." Edmund shifted in the doorway, and his dark gaze burned into her eyes. "But I can't. It is about you, as much as it's about all of us, even when you choose not to see it. It's not a game we can toss aside. It's a part of us, and because of that, everything you do and say against it hurts not only us, but a deeper part of yourself... We miss her. We miss you, and I think you do, too."

Now Susan frowned, and prepared to argue, but Edmund quieted her again.

"Just listen. Please." His voice cracked slightly. "Tomorrow we will all be at the train station. Peter and I are going to fetch the Professor's rings, and then we will meet everyone there in the morning. Us boys, and the Professor, and Aunt Polly, and Eustace, and Jill, and Lucy. The seven of us, though I hope you will be the eighth. Please meet us there, as we say goodbye to our cousin and our friend, and wish them well on their journey. Believe, just once more. Not for me, Susan. And not for Lucy. Do it for yourself."

"Edmund, I-"

"Save it for tomorrow. I'm going to talk to Lucy. I hope you'll apologize to her, too." With those words, he turned to leave.

Susan's heart sank in desperation as she called out for her brother. She stared at him hopelessly as he hovered a moment longer in the doorway; so like her, and yet so like Peter, and yet so like Lucy, and yet more like someone she swore she'd never met. As she tried to answer, she knew her mind had already made itself up the moment the choice had been given, even though she ached to do as he said.

Edmund didn't smile, but his gaze softened. "I love you."

"I love you, too."

He slipped down the hall and added, "I'll tell Lucy."

Susan gave a sad smile. She'd lost Lucy, and tomorrow she would risk losing her all over again. Peter would be lost too, and then even her precious Edmund, all because she wouldn't go. She couldn't go. Not for herself, and not even for them, though her heart ached to follow. Susan Pevensie was saying no for the last time, and she doubted they'd give her another chance.

* * *

The call came the following evening.

Her cousin. His friend.

The man who took them in, and the woman who called herself family.

Her parents. Her brothers. Her baby sister.

Gone.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The progression of Susan's first few years on her own, following her family's death.

There was so much chaos in Susan's mind. Her brothers, her father, stiff and in suits, looking almost as if they were sleeping, but bruises still showed through. Her mother with her best pearls around her neck, (Susan had always loved them but wouldn't touch them now,) and Lucy in one of Susan's own dresses. (It had always looked better on her little sister, and Susan hadn't been able to bear the sight of it in her closet, so she put it in the ground.)

They were all in the ground now. 

It was all a blur. Phone calls and letters and lawyers and coffins, flowers and meals and hugs and tears. Arguments she didn't remember having, (apparently she was no longer seeing that young man she had so liked a week ago,) and conversations that didn't seem to end. She gave some sort of speech at a funeral - or she tried to - and five bodies which were so alive not long ago were buried in dirt. She didn't go to Eustace's funeral. She didn't go to Jill's. She made sure some arrangements were made for the Professor and Aunt Polly, (dear Aunt Polly,) as they didn't have much family, but she couldn't bring herself to do any more than that.

All gone. All in the ground.

Susan didn't speak to Uncle Harold or Aunt Alberta, and they didn't speak to her. They'd seen each other once since the accident, and Aunt Alberta had cried, and Susan had tried to cry with her. But her Aunt glared at her and said this wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for those Pevensies, and Susan couldn't even bring herself to argue. (Who was she if she couldn't defend her siblings? She couldn't protect them now. They'd been so far, for so long, but now they were out of her arms forever.) Susan didn't mention - in fact, didn't even think about the fact that Eustace would have had to take the train on his way to school anyway. She took her broken heart, and let her Aunt and Uncle believe what they wanted.

She didn't know how she walked away. How could she let them believe it was all her siblings' fault? Oh, it had been so easy to blame them a short while ago, but she knew it wasn't them who had done this. It was their Narnia. 

Susan let her plants die in her windows, and stopped answering her phone. Friends showed up uninvited at her door, desperate to make sure she was okay, and, oh, she would've loved to thank them, but she couldn't quite bring herself to do it. She lost a few pounds, even though they made sure she ate. Her hair began to get thinner.

Things arrived for her: inheritances she didn't want. They all ended up shoved into boxes and forgotten.

Oh, how she longed to forget.

Forget.

Like she had before.

* * * * *

Was the first year harder? Or was it the second?

There was something awful about all the firsts. She knew the dates too well. Her parents' anniversary: they'd just reached 25, but their 26th was celebrated with a single glass of wine, and their wedding picture was overturned. Susan's birthday was colder, and lonelier than she could have even imagined. She didn't dare throw a party, and though her friends sent gifts, no one came to see her. When Christmas rolled around, one of her parents' old friends invited her to join them, and though she had dinner at their house on Christmas eve, she stayed in bed Christmas day. She didn't go to church that year.

The first snow fell silently, though in her mind Susan still heard Lucy cheering. When spring rolled around, she still heard Peter humming strange songs. Peter's birthday came and went, and she heard about a few of his friends meeting to celebrate, but Susan still felt "celebrate" was a dirty word. Lucy's birthday came next. She would have been 18. Should have been. Could have been. How was it that she had only been 17? This young child, (who Susan had been so mad at for being one,) really felt more like a woman than anything else, now that she looked back. A woman, and yet her baby sister... A woman, and yet forever 17. But then came Edmund's birthday again, the last milestone before the biggest one, and she wondered how it was that just a year before they had all been dancing together.

Yes, the first were awful, and all blurred together. What should have been celebrations were silent instead. There was the first meal she ate, and the first time she heard Lucy's favourite song playing on the radio. The first time she wanted to call Peter and remembered she couldn't. The first time she thought she heard Edmund's footsteps outside the door. The first Remembrance Day, when Susan stood too straight, the way her brothers would have done. The first birthdays alone, first Christmas alone, and the first day she didn't cry. The first time her heart broke after waking up from a dream, because in the dream they had been there, and she remembered now that they weren't. And then, most terribly, the first anniversary of the accident which had taken her family from her.

But in their own way, the seconds were worse. The novelty had worn off. No longer was Susan Pevensie living her first year alone; she was living her life now. 

So it went on. Whispered toasts. Unsent birthday cards. Books shoved in boxes. Plants growing again. Chess board put away. Dinner with friends. Hugs that lingered. Applying makeup. Crying. Fixing makeup again. Giving away dresses. Buying new ones. Buying flowers to leave on gravestones. 

Alone. Alone. Alone.

The first year passed, and the second, and by the third she was going to parties with her friends again, but differently this time. She set days aside for her family: to read Edmund's favourite books, and listen to Lucy's favourite record, and to take a walk for Peter, and to talk to her parents' gravestone. The third year, and this was a rhythm. She lived her life with all the grace she could muster, and when she broke down, she was a little less afraid of reaching out. She let herself have fun. She let herself not be alone. 

By the fourth year, Susan was dating someone for the first time since the accident. He was an old friend of Peter's, and he was nice. He made her happy. He went to church, like her parents would've liked. (Though she never joined him. She couldn't yet. Not yet.) 

She could feel the light bleeding through the cracks in her armour, now, and she wondered if she ought to fix that, but she was tired of being alone. She was tired of being afraid. She was tired of being angry, and empty all at once. Her windows were often left open, and she let herself take it all in, and found the courage to let it all out. 

Something was changing in her. 

Piece by piece.

Little by little.

And she liked it.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Susan finally finds the courage to look through her family's possessions. Among them is Lucy's bible.

She had to will herself to look in the box. It had been tucked away in her closet for years, and at the time she had thought she'd leave it there forever. Now she knew better.

Susan Pevensie was 26. Her family was gone. (Dead.) But she was better now than she had been when she first lost them, and she had decided that she would move on better if she took some time to appreciate the items she had hidden away in the box. (Not that "better now" meant much, of course. She was still alone. She was still sad. It was not the kind of thing she would get over, but now she thought she would live through it. In that little way, she was better now.)

Carefully, she removed the lid, and looked quickly over the items inside. First: a torch which Edmund had received on his last birthday. He received one nearly every year; some kind of long-forgotten joke between the four of them. Peter was always quick to remind him that he could never have enough torches, but Edmund had a penchant for losing them anyways. Slowly, with the barest of grins, Susan lifted it, and put it aside. 

Second: a medal that had belonged to Peter. Susan had blocked out the history of it, like she had with the rest of the war and her brothers' military service, but Peter had been proud of it. For what was he awarded it? Some great act of valour or courage or leadership, she had no doubt. Oh, if only she'd payed better attention. Susan ran her thumb over it fondly, and carefully set it next to Edmund's torch. 

Third: a bible, thick with extra papers, which stuck out the edges. Lucy's.

Susan's eyes welled with tears, and she placed the box down on the floor in front of her. Deep breaths, she told herself. In and out. 

She sat for a few more seconds, and then allowed herself to pick the bible up. Susan couldn't remember holding it before for more than a few seconds, but she ran her fingers lovingly along the spine and pages, imagining Lucy's own fingers doing the same. Lucy had loved this book. Susan had hated it. It had caused so much animosity between them, especially in the end. You beg me to remember, but there is nothing there!

Susan shivered, remembering the harsh words they had exchanged the night before the accident. She wished she could forget them. She longed to take them back. She yearned to be forgiven. 

A chord struck within her, and she knew for a moment that forgiveness was in the book she held. That was what Edmund had always told her, and she wanted to believe Edmund now, even if she hadn't before. But dare she?

She allowed her fingers to open to a random page. In doing so, she noticed how well-worn the pages were, and she considered once again how much Lucy had loved the book she now held in her hands. But all at once, she was disappointed. She scanned the page, and did not find the forgiveness Edmund had promised her. Instead she noticed a little pencil mark under two lines: "This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." Psalm 118:24. 

Had Lucy done that? Well, of course she must have. But why? Would she have done the same if she had known she was going to die in a random accident at 17 years old? Was that a day worth rejoicing in?

Over the years, so much of Susan's anger had given way to grief. But now she felt the flicker of rage once again. What had been the reason? Why had Lucy and their brothers gone to the train station that day? Oh, it was on the tip of her tongue! It was some sort of game, but Susan could not remember its name.

She did remember that she had decided not to play.

Let us rejoice and be glad in it. 

Susan looked up the page and saw another line of pencil. "It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in princes." Psalm 118:9. This one made Susan chuckle, or very nearly. She remembered how Lucy had liked a couple boys in her younger years, and the times she'd done up her hair in an effort to impress them. But it also crossed her mind that Lucy had gotten over most of them quickly. They were rather stupid boys, as most young men were at that age, and Lucy didn't give them more credit than was due. Susan had admired her for that.

Absentmindedly, Susan flipped the pages backwards.

"Know this: God has even forgotten some of your sin." Job 11:6b.

This one struck Susan a little differently, but she only noticed it for a second, because underneath it, a paragraph was underlined, and she noticed a little scrap of paper tucked into this page. 

"Yet if you devote your heart to him and stretch out your hands to him, if you put away the sin that is in your hand and allow no evil to dwell in your tent, then you will lift up your face without shame; you will stand firm and without fear. You will surely forget your trouble, recalling it only as waters gone by. Life will be brighter than noonday, and darkness will become like morning. You will be secure, because there is hope; you will look about you and take your rest in safety..." Job 11:13-18.

Susan's heart swelled of its own accord as she read the passage, and she let her eyes drift to the scrap of paper Lucy had shoved next to it.

It was a sketch. Lucy had always been artistic, and she'd loved to draw and paint, and this small drawing was a testament to her talent. She must have drawn it later on, as it was too good for her 10-year-old hands. It was a picture of Edmund. He looked like a child, but he wore a crown on his head, and his expression was unlike any she had ever seen, (though she began to feel as though maybe she had seen it. In a dream. Or a dream of a dream.) You will lift up your face without shame. Edmund's face shone. It was noble, and proud, but not haughty. It was happy. It was at peace. It was not the face of a boy in the middle of a war, nor the face of a boy playing a game. It was something different. Too tangible. Too real.

Susan let the bible drop from her hands, and she scrambled backwards until she felt her bed at her back, as if trying to distance herself from the picture. Her breathing was hard, and she felt as if her heart was singing to her. She tried to drown it out. The words of that passage echoed through her head: You will surely forget your trouble... This felt more like the forgiveness she was seeking.

But she hadn't intended to receive it from God. She wanted it from Lucy. She needed Lucy's approval, desperately. Susan hadn't thought about God. She didn't think she needed him. 

Yet something in the verse still resonated inside her, and after letting herself relax for another minute, she picked up Lucy's bible once again. 

She started near the beginning, and flipped haphazardly through, reading whatever pages she landed on. There was a fruit in a garden, accompanied by a crudely drawn picture of a sparkling apple, (which Lucy must have drawn as a child,) followed by a serpent, and a better image of a boy fighting one. Various margins were filled with diagrams of stars and constellations which didn't look familiar to Susan, but she liked them anyway. There was a verse underlined about a boy named Josiah who became king at 8 years old, and next to it Lucy had written, "Like me!" in uneven letters which Susan had once known like the back of her hand.

Susan skimmed the chapter of Job, which had enraptured her before, and felt sadness as she realized that this man had also lost everything, (and shame when she realized that even then he wouldn't curse God.) She read several Psalms, and wondered at the praise present within them, even as the author wrote about his enemies and his sorrows. Song of Songs was full of nervous underlines. "How beautiful you are, my darling! Oh, how beautiful! Your eyes are doves." Song of Songs 1:15. "Who is this that appears like the dawn, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, majestic as the stars in procession?" Song of Songs 6:10. Susan sensed a yearning there that she'd never noticed before. 

There was another verse which Lucy had circled wildly, which proclaimed, "They will follow the Lord; he will roar like a lion." Hosea 11:10a. Beside it was a childlike picture of a lion roaring, though there were many lions scattered through the pages of the bible, and Susan trembled at the sight of them. 

There was a piece about the crucifiction of Jesus, about the reason he'd died, and Lucy's wider, messier letters spelled out, "Like Edmund!" Then, a large paper tucked into the book, with a large cross on the top, and a large, cracked stone shaped rather like a table below it. 

Susan's breath caught in her throat as she examined the picture, willing herself to remember. There was something about it... Almost as if she had seen it before...

Startled, she turned to the first page of the last chapter. She wasn't ready to close the book yet. It would feel too much like shutting Lucy out, but she also needed it to end. She couldn't take much more of it.

"Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place." Revelation 2:4-5. 

It was like she had been punched in the chest.

And far worse: in the margins of the page, next to the letter, was a sketch of a lamppost. Beside it, small and neat, were the words, "For Susan." 

Even now, Susan did not recall any "first love," but the words chilled her all the same. There was a desire, suddenly, which she realized must have been lying hidden under her grief, and her face was wet with tears. 

"I'm sorry, Lucy. I'm so sorry!" she sobbed. A name came to the tip of her tongue as she traced the lamppost, but she couldn't place it.

She turned a few pages further, to where an envelope was wedged between the pages. Her own name was printed neatly on the front.

This startled her, but before she decided to read it, she noticed a few more verses underlined on the penultimate page. 

"'He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.' He who was seated on the throne said, 'I am making everything new!'" Revelation 21:4-5a.

In her heart, she felt the voice was good. A fatherly voice. She could hear it rumbling in the back of her kind, almost like a purr. I am making everything new! And with that voice was a promise: no more death, no more tears, no more pain. Susan's heart settled in her chest, and she pulled the envelope addressed to her out from between the last couple pages. 

"Dear Susan," it began, like so many letters do. It was Lucy's grown-up handwriting. This was not an old letter.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Letter From Lucy

"Dear Susan,

"I haven't yet made up my mind whether I will actually give this to you. Likely I won't, though I feel as if I should. There are some things I need to say to you, you see, that I can never find the courage to tell you in person." 

A word flickered in Susan's mind. Valiant. 

"I won't make this about what used to be, because I know you hate it, and you'll only harden your heart to me if I try. I don't think you mean to, Susan, but you do. You won't believe like you used to, and I wonder now how much you believed back then. You're too stubborn, Susan. So am I. So are the boys. (Our parents are lucky indeed!)

"I only write this because I fear I will never say it. Truthfully, I think I will stuff it somewhere and hide it away for years and years, because I'm just not brave enough to face you. I used to feel like a lioness, but the truth is that I don't feel like it with you. I feel like a child, the way you talk down to me, and I feel useless. Especially after tonight. I'm trying frightfully hard not to be angry with you, Su. We both know I have an awful temper. But Edmund said you didn't mean it, and I know he's right. He usually is with these sorts of things. Perhaps I'm still upset over what you said, but I promise I'll forgive you. I know you're hurting. I'm hurting, too. Tonight was awful, but I truly believe that we will get past it."

Susan's stomach twisted as she realized that, though undated, this letter was written the night of their argument. The night, as fate would have it, before the accident. The night before they died. The tears poured down Susan's face so that she could hardly read, and she took care not to get the pages of the letter wet.

"What I really want to say is that I wish you would believe me. Not because I need you to, but because you are missing out on something incredible. It's not about the things you call games. It's about the very real faith I have found here. I don't know how you let yourself ignore it sometimes! There is so much strength in it. So much hope. Oh, and I know you hate my bible most of the time, but if you could only read the ending, I think you'd get it. It says. 'I am making everything new!' That always sounded so beautiful to me, like when spring comes after winter.

"This is God who is speaking. Our God. The God I think you know in your brain, but not in your heart. (I'm sorry. I know I'm not supposed to judge. But you feel so distant that I just can't help it sometimes.) I just wish you understood it, and believed it like you used to. Oh, Susan, I just wish you would remember! It was dawn for us. Don't you know what it felt like? To think I have a Saviour who died for me is incredible, and then he rose again for me, too! He died for all of us, and rose for all of us, and I find so much strength in that. I think you would, too, if you would just let yourself believe it. I think you're missing a light in your life, and I pray daily that you find it. (I don't tell you I pray for you, but I do. My greatest fear is that you might ask me to stop.)

"That's what I want most for you. I think it's what you need. But if you can't believe, would you please stop telling me not to? Isn't it at all possible that I know something you don't? Isn't it at all possible that you are the one who is wrong? Why do you have to be so proud? If you can't remember, then maybe there's nothing I can do to make you, but I can stand up for myself and for my faith. Because it matters, even when you say it doesn't. It matters in spite of you.

"I talk to the boys about you sometimes. An awful lot, really. I can't help it. I used to talk to you about these things that terrified me, but I can't talk to you about yourself, because it always ends the same way. I hope you'll forgive me. I promise not everything we say is nasty, because mostly we're just sad. Not tonight, though. I told Peter and Edmund about our argument, and I think they were as mad as I was. (You really can't just say those things, Susan.) So instead I asked them what they might say to you if they were brave enough. They don't know I'm writing it down. 

"Edmund wanted to tell you that it hurts him that you don't believe, like a knife in his back. It hurts all of us, of course, but it's different for him. How can you really not remember? How can you not remember what God did for him? He also wants you to know that he loves you. He said he told you this, but he worried he didn't make it clear. You weren't listening, I think. Susan, you're our sister, for better or for worse, and when we're hurting, it's only because we see how much you're hurting. We love you. Really and truly and with all our hearts.

"Peter said that, too. He loves you, and he wishes you didn't hurt. He wants you to have hope again, and sometimes he doesn't know how to handle it. He's sorry he pushes you away sometimes, but he wishes you knew that he's not giving up on you. Nothing could make him do that. He wants you to believe, but until then, he'll take care of you. He always has protected us. And I really think he said that more for my sake, at first, just because he knew I was worried about you. But I also know that he meant what he said. You can count on Peter. He is always there for you, and for all of us, if we need him.

"That's what the boys say to me when you're not around. That's what they said tonight. I know we get angry at you sometimes, but we still do love you.

"I don't think I'll give you this. I couldn't bear to see the look on your face as you read it. I don't know if you'd be angry or not, but I think it would be too much. It doesn't matter though, because it has done me good just to write this. I hope I find the courage to tell you one day. But even if you never hear it, I want you to know I'm praying for you. I'm sorry, Susan, for what I said. I forgive you, too. And I love you dearly.

Your sister,

Lucy."

Susan shivered. There it was, in ink, what she wanted to hear most in the world: I forgive you. But the letter was so much more than that. She felt conviction, though she didn't know what for. She just knew she would do better. She knew she would listen like she hadn't before. She knew she would open her heart again. Because she was forgiven, and she felt it now. And she was loved. 

If that was the only thing she knew for sure, she was loved.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter of the main story, to be followed by a brief epilogue.

Susan visited her parents' shared tombstone on their 31st wedding anniversary, a dozen roses in hand. There was a verse inscribed on the stone, which had been suggested to her by the pastor of her parents' church, and at the time she hadn't had it in her to care, but now she regarded it with curiosity. She'd seen it countless times over the past five years, but it struck her a little differently this time around. "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28.

She'd appreciated it before, for her own reasons. It bid her to come and rest, and she liked it in association with her parents. What were parents for, after all, if not to comfort you, protect you, encourage you, and nurture you? The grave may have caused her distress, but she couldn't help but feel like her parents were still there with her as she spoke to them. It was a little glimmer of hope that she just couldn't let go of.

She studied the verse again, now. That's what it was: a verse. It wasn't a call from her parents. It wasn't about her parents at all. In fact, it wouldn't even be written there if she hadn't consented to put it there in the first place. And yet, she was more glad than ever that she had let it be written.

Susan placed the roses on the earth, and knelt in front of them. Her father had always been sure to buy flowers for his wife on their anniversary. In fact, it was Mrs. Pevensie who tended to forget the date. Not that she was particularly forgetful - none of the Pevensies really were - but she remembered every one of her children's birthdays, and perhaps she lost track of those days meant to celebrate herself in the process. She'd always been a good mother, in that way. Susan had told her to take a break more than once in her later years, but of course her mother never listened. ...and I will give you rest.

Susan sat and talked for a while. She talked a little about a strange call she had received; from Aunt Alberta of all people, and how they were planning to meet. She mentioned that she had finally met Jill Pole's parents, and she wished she had reached out earlier. And then she talked about the boy she was seeing, (not for the first time) and how much they would have liked him. She confessed that she really thought she loved him, and that she hoped to marry him one day. Something was different about him, she assured them. Her father would have loved the way he talked with such purpose. Her mother would have loved the way he helped her put on her coat, and pulled out her chair. At the very least, she knew they'd have loved the smile he put on her face.

That meeting with her parents left Susan feeling satisfied in a way she hadn't in a long time. She'd always been a romantic, of course, but it wasn't just about the young man she loved. She felt closer to her parents in that moment; like she was closer to understanding them. Her heart was a little more open to them. Her shoulders carried a little less weight.

Her birthday came next, and it wasn't so lonely as her first couple had been. She went out with friends, dressed to the nines, and she let herself smile brightly. They drank together, toasting Susan, toasting 27. Her friends got giggly and joked about engagement rings, and Susan brushed them off with laughter. When she left, though, they hugged her tightly. They were more serious. They knew she still hurt, and she loved them so much in that moment that she thought her heart might burst. In their own way, they had become her family, too. 

On her way out, she caught sight of herself in a mirror, and for a moment she could have sworn there was something different about it. Oh, it was so clearly her own reflection, and yet, in the corner of her eye, it was someone else entirely. Someone noble. Beautiful. Happy.

Now was the fifth Christmas since the accident, and Susan did something she had once sworn she'd never do again: she called her boyfriend and asked if he'd pick her up and take her with him to the church service. She was unspeakably nervous about it, though she didn't know why. Perhaps they would all stare at her; the people there. Judge her for leaving. Condemn her for her lack of faith. And in her mind she knew she hadn't done anything dreadfully wrong, but in her heart she felt a deeper truth. You have forsaken your first love. Would they really judge her for being gone for so long? She felt they would. 

She sat through the service in a row near the back, holding tightly to her boyfriend's hand.

"Do you ever think about it?" he whispered, catching her off guard.

"Hmmm?"

"These people were awaiting a Saviour, and had been for generations. They were oppressed, and needed a hero."

"So?"

"So they wanted a king, Su. They received a baby. Not a soldier who could fight, but a child carried with his mother on the back of a donkey, and born in a stable. Jesus was not what they wanted, yet he did exactly what he promised to do. He wasn't what they wanted, but was exactly what they needed. Isn't it beautiful?"

Susan could feel sparks in her chest; gears turning in her head. There was something familiar about it... so familiar... children praised as kings, fulfilling prophecies they couldn't be expected to fulfill. Susan opened her heart to the thought of it; considered what it meant in real time. "Yes," she answered thoughtfully. "It's beautiful."

After the service, her fears fell away. The people she'd noticed glancing at her when she'd first arrived now rose to meet her. Some of them she recognized from her days attending church with her family, and evidently they recognized her, too. They greeted her with open arms, offering condolences and stories about her parents that Susan had never heard before, and they said that they were so glad to see her there. Others who came up to her were people who knew her boyfriend, and they told her it was nice to finally meet her. Susan hugged and shook hands and smiled and wiped tears and talked and said "Merry Christmas," until she couldn't any longer, and then she let her boyfriend help her into her coat, and said good-bye. 

She realized now that her fears were unfounded. She had been nothing but welcome, and though Susan had never felt very comfortable in the church, this time it felt just a little like coming home. She began to wonder if she could find a family there, too. 

Peter's birthday fell just before Easter. Susan hadn't gone back to the church since Christmas, but she planned to go again on Easter Sunday, like she used to with her family. For the time being, she remained in her old rhythm, it seemed; though at the same time, it was entirely different. She'd been reading Lucy's bible more and more, from the beginning again. She wished she had an explanation for some of Lucy's earlier drawings, because they didn't strike her in quite the same way as some of the other ones did. Sure, the glittering apple could just represent the forbidden fruit of Eden, and yet, Susan knew that that explanation didn't satisfy her. All the other illustrations were deeper. They were Other. Strange and yet so, so real.

Susan felt waves of pain still, and of guilt. She read of Cain and Abel, and wondered how one could kill his brother, and in the same moment remembered how she pushed her family away, and pondered whether that was not, in some way, the same. While she had the forgiveness she'd so badly wanted from Lucy, it crossed her mind that she might never be able to so easily forgive herself. She'd never have the relationship with Lucy that she could have had if she'd been more open to her. She could never make amends to Edmund for abandoning him. She could never tell Peter that she still needed him, no matter how much she had tried to be independent. She would never be able to stop missing them, and, in the oddest way, she didn't really want to. Missing them meant she still loved them. Missing them meant she was keeping them with her. No, there were some things she knew she should never let go of. 

And though Lucy's bible seemed to be an ever-present symbol of her loss, Susan found she was finding life in it, too. A life she didn't remember; like the illustrations of a boy accompanying the story of Moses. Susan could have sworn she'd known and loved him; a boy like a brother and yet obviously neither Peter or Edmund, and her heart ached at the sight of him, though she struggled to place his face. There was something all too real about those pages, and she felt both perplexed and comforted by them.

On Peter's birthday, she took a walk by herself, like she usually did, and as she walked, she spoke to Peter. (Or rather, she thought to him, asking him questions and telling him stories internally, and hoping desperately that somehow he could hear her.) But unlike her walks in past years, this year she asked mostly about his faith. She wondered how he'd gotten to be so brave, and how he'd come to believe so strongly. What part of it had enchanted him? Was it the strength, the battles, the disasters, the boldness? Or was it the quieter moments that spoke to Peter's soft heart? Was it the baby born in a stable, who angels praised? Was it the moment the sun stood still? Was it the simple beauty of the words, "Let there be light?" Susan felt she ought to know. There was a kind of hope in all of it, and she couldn't begin to explain what part of it her brother may have liked best, although she felt she knew his heart better than anyone alive. It was all significant.

And the only answer she received, (whether somehow from Peter, or just a shimmer in her own heart,) was that she wanted to know more.

She dressed up for Easter Sunday, wearing a soft blue dress she felt Lucy would have loved, (it spun the way she'd always liked dresses to.) She wore her red lipstick, too. She held her boyfriend's arm as they walked through the door, and for possibly the first time, she felt like she was exactly where she needed to be. She was Susan Pevensie, 27 years old, and she was finding herself again.

And so, the lightning struck. The dawn broke. It was dawn for us. The fog cleared, and Susan saw something she'd been missing since she was 15 years old.

As the pastor spoke, the table cracked in front of her.

She remembered these sermons. She remembered the way she'd shut them out. She remembered Lucy's golden curls bobbing up and down as her finger was pulled over the passages. She remembered the things her siblings said about them in hushed voices in the churchyard. She remembered thinking them foolish. And yet, as she recalled these empty years, the Lion appeared in the emptiness.

LORD. Saviour. Master. Teacher. Counsellor. Creator. God. 

The names took their place, and she knew Him better than she ever had before. There stood the omnipresent figure she'd been seeing out of the corner of her eye for upwards of a decade: the shadow of doubt in her made-up mind: the flower blooming through the pavement crack. Oh, she knew him. She knew she did. She knew it like she had never known anything before.

Jesus. Christ Jesus. And then: Aslan.

The name caused her heart to leap, and in the same moment her stomach dropped. Susan's eyes filled with tears as she thought, "I see him now. I'm sorry."

She didn't know who she meant to say it to. Her first thought was Lucy, (in fact, she got the feeling she had said it to her before,) but that answer felt wrong. She was apologizing to something deeper. A part of herself, maybe, which she'd tried so hard to smother. Or, perhaps, she spoke to God himself. She didn't see the Lion now. She saw the pastor preaching in front of a looming, wooden cross.

She couldn't determine the moment it became true for her. In fact, she considered that it had always been true. Maybe she hadn't disbelieved; not truly. But, oh, how she'd hated it! She may have never claimed there was no God, but she'd certainly told herself she hated Him, and now that thought hit her like a train. Who had she truly hated, all those years when she was wandering? When she felt like a shell of herself, and yet accused her siblings of being the ones with no hearts? She'd hated the God who took her family from her, but hadn't remembered that they were his to take. She was his, too. She'd always been. She could still remember the feel of him beneath her fingers...

The pain coursing through her felt like nails in her skin, and yet, it was good. She was shedding her skin, washing off the dirt, and burying her face in the earth in the form of a bow. She didn't know if she could sink any lower, as she let her heart be humble.

I'm sorry. I see it now. I see it all now. 

I'm sorry. I should have gone. Oh, I see it now.

I'm sorry. Forgive me, Lord. Please forgive me.

Aslan, forgive me. I'll do better. I'll believe. I'll follow this time.

I'm so sorry. I see it now. It's all so clear, LORD. I see it all now.

Susan went home broken, she supposed, but in a good way. It was dawn again. The dark shriveled within her, and she watered her plants.

Susan Pevensie made herself a cup of tea, and sat down once more with her sister's bible. She fought a little harder to remember than she had before, because this time, she knew it was real. She had been there. She had touched it. It wasn't a dream any longer, and she could feel the shadow lifting. And so she started near the end, where the lamppost was so lovingly drawn. "For Susan," it still read, and Susan's heart overflowed with love and conviction, realizing what it meant. Lucy was holding hope for her. Susan had forgotten. Forsaken. Lucy had left a light for her.

Piece by piece, memories came back, and each one convicted her and broke her anew. Piece by piece, she rebuilt. She looked over the portrait of Edmund that had first caught her eye, and as she did, she thought Just. Peter, she remembered, was Magnificent. Lucy had been Valiant. As for Susan herself, she had been called Gentle, and her heart broke as she considered all the times she had betrayed that title. 

She remembered the names of her old friends, now, and the mountains in the distance, and the sea just below her. She remembered the different constellations, and said their names aloud as she examined their illustrations in Lucy's bible. She remembered having courage, and she remembered having doubt, and she remembered having joy and anger and grief and overwhelming love.

She remembered being 27 once more, and this time, she was solid. She didn't feel the dreams slipping through her fingers onto a wooden floor. She felt real, and confident, and renewed. She had faith; faith like she had never had. She knew now who she was.

She was Susan Pevensie: She was beautiful, and friendly, and grieving, and in love. She hoped to become a wife one day, and a mother, too. She was hurt. She was happy. She was redeemed.

Forever a sister, forever a daughter.

She was Susan Pevensie: forever a queen.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue

Susan Pevensie lived a long life. At times it had felt too long, but by the end, it felt like just long enough. She had gotten married, had children, then grandchildren, and she loved more than she'd once thought she'd ever be capable to again. She was happy. Really happy.

When she reached the end of her life, she wasn't afraid. How could she be? At most, she was confused. Oh, she'd seen this world, if only in her dreams, and she knew it the moment she opened her eyes. In a way, it was exactly the world she had once known and loved. Yet it was deeper, and stranger, and greater than any world she had ever known.

Her long skirts didn't bother her as she walked. Her feet didn't get sore. She only had it in her mind to do one thing: go further. Further up and further in. So she went on and on, taking in everything and nothing all at once, not stopping until she reached a gate. Before it stood a mouse, and she smiled when she saw him. But then the gate opened, and her smile grew.

There stood the three people she'd most wanted to see since she was 20 years old.

Peter. No, King Peter the Magnificent, dressed in vibrant red and a golden crown, reached for her left hand.

Edmund - King Edmund the Just - grinned in a way that made her heart ache for the familiarity, and reached for her right.

Then Lucy; darling, precious, Valiant Queen Lucy, rushed at her and wrapped her arms around her middle.

The next moment, their arms all struggled to find places around each other, and there was joyous weeping on both sides. Susan couldn't help noticing how alive they looked, and she realized that at the very first glimpse of them, her last image of them had vanished from her head. How could she remember them in their graves when they weren't in them and never had been? How could she remember the picture of death now that she was truly alive?

Susan grasped for words; any words. Words she'd been thinking and praying for decades, and words she'd always thought she'd say when she saw them again. But in this moment, she couldn't find them. They were together. They were happy. They were alive.

They eventually pulled away from their embrace, and she turned to each of them once more. First, she wrapped her arms around Peter, - her shield, - and buried her face in his chest, letting herself feel the freedom of not needing him for the first time in her life. He was there, at long last, but she didn't need him. Not now. Not here. Here, she just loved him. Second, she gazed at Edmund, - her mirror, - and let herself know him for who he really was. She'd projected herself on him. She'd needed him to be like her, and not like the others. But here, he could just be Edmund. He could just be. Exactly who they were was just enough. And third, she placed her hands on Lucy's cheeks, - her light, - and admired the woman Lucy had become, and possibly always been. And as she stared at that glowing face, she found the words she most wanted to say to all of them.

"Thank you," she choked. "Thank you, for not giving up on me."

In a second, she was surrounded by them again, and they fell to the ground and cried some more.

A sudden brightness made her tear herself away, and in an instant she forgot her siblings, because the real Wonder was before her. Aslan himself; the Great Lion; her greatest desire, though she'd often been far from knowing it.

Without moving from her place on the ground, she lowered her head and bowed. She longed to rush at him. She longed to feel his fur under her fingers. But she felt like she needed permission.

"Rise, Queen Susan of Narnia, and walk with me," he said to her, and she obediently got up and followed.

She saw many faces she knew and loved and remembered as she walked with Aslan, but she kept her focus on Him. What did he want to say to her? And why had she waited so long to return to him?

Finally, he stopped, and breathed on her. "Susan, my child, are you brave again?"

"Yes, Aslan." She felt shivers down her spine as she said his name.

"Why did you stop?"

Susan had answered this question so many times in her prayers that she didn't hesitate to answer. It was the cornerstone of her repentance, and she'd felt truly free the first time she'd admitted it. "I was angry, Aslan, and I was prideful. When you told me I couldn't come back to Narnia, I thought... well, I thought it meant you didn't love me as much as the others. I've never been as brave as them-"

"Dearest, why do you still compare yourself to your brothers and sister?Have you truly believed that I could love one of you more than the others? Did I not die for all of you; you and your ancestors and all your descendants, even those that have yet to be born? Did I not create you with purpose? My child, did you not know how much I loved you all those years, even when you were lost?"

Susan was surprised by this. Why, indeed, did she compare herself to her brothers and sister? "I... I don't know, Aslan. They always seemed so much stronger than me, and I just thought-"

"Did you not build your own kingdoms in the ruins of what once was? Did you not live on without them? Did you not also offer your heart to me in worship? Daughter, there is more than one kind of strength, and yours has always lied in letting go."

Susan had been afraid to let herself think these things. She'd been trying to force the pride out of her body, and to have any confidence in herself felt like a symptom of that very sin that had first led her astray. But this was not her saying them: it was Aslan. And she felt, for possibly the first time, that she'd done at least one thing right. In a trembling voice, she admitted, "I should never have let go of you."

"No, Susan. But remember now that I never let go of you."

"Of course, Aslan. I know that now. It took me years to learn it, and longer still to take it to heart. But even when I knew that you were with me, those years were still difficult."

"Child, for your brothers and your sister, it was easy to believe as long as they held on. But you needed time. I let you leave Narnia so that you could find your own way, and we will not dwell on the way you chose. You are with me now. My daughter, be strong, and let go. Your trespasses have been forgotten. You are made knew."

With that one word, her heart burst, and every trace of guilt and pride and shame disappeared. "I am making everything new." She'd memorized those words. She'd underlined it in her own bible, and reminded herself of it whenever she went astray.

New. Susan had been made new.

She dropped her guard, and at long last wrapped her arms around the Lion before her, and his tongue met her forehead in a great kiss.

Here she was. At last. Chapter One. And she was ready to turn the page.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much, to those of you who have read this story. I shared it previously on Wattpad, and linked to it many times on my Tumblr, and now it's become my first work on ao3! As I've shared it elsewhere, I have already received amazing feedback, but I really wanted to be able to share it with more people. Flowers For Her Grave was exceptionally important for me to write, and I hope that came through as you were reading. Like I said in the story summary, this is only the condensed version, but that doesn't make it any less powerful or important to me as an author. Someday I hope to add to it: flesh out the characters that were hardly touched on, explain some relationships, add more details, etc... but for now, this accomplishes nearly everything I want and need it to. 
> 
> Anyways, I hope you have enjoyed this! Seeing as I've posted it here all in one night, I'll say that I look forward to hearing your feedback! Seriously, this is everything to me. <3 Thank you, and God bless!


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